Do we ever really hold our officers accountable?
Our role in holding the union responsbible.
Nominations are open and another group of JCRC hotshots have thrown their hats into the ring. It’s the same old climb to YUSU power, somewhat cliquey and usually quite predictable. So is there any reason to believe our union will offer us anything more next year?
Surely to adequately answer this question we first need to establish what exactly YUSU have and haven’t done for us this year. How far have they kept their election promises? And, perhaps more significantly, how far have we held them accountable?
Certainly Anne-Marie Canning’s motto from her campaign last year, “all for one and one for all”, seems to have deteriorated. YUSU have fractured and turned on one another over several key issues. From the divisive freshers’ goodie bags to repetitive spats over ethical merchandise crises. Not forgetting the more recent Academic and Welfare Officer drama. So much for Canning’s hoped for “clean and well-respected union”.
It is of course all too easy to let recent incidents overshadow the rest of their tenure. Significant though these events have been, it is the responsibility of both the campus media and the student body to not allow their memory to be so short term.
Indeed there is a tendency to neglect the less glamorous but equally significant victories of the YUSU team, in favour of not only the recent but the memorable. Cellulite cream anyone? Burton, a man who rarely receives praise from students, has increased YUSU’s turnover by £20,000 to a total of £60,000 and has successfully streamlined ticketing and voting services for students. Finance committee have also took the decision to support Nouse and Vision through the ongoing print costs crisis.
In addition to the financial successes of Burton, Society and Communications Officer Sam Bayley has kept all his election pledges, Joey Ellis has revitalised student action with student recruitment on projects such as kid’s camp and Fletcher-Hackwood took great steps in creating a better relationship between YUSU and campus media.
Nevertheless, the sabbatical officers have failed to meet their promises on as many occasions as they’ve had successes. Burton’s suggested expansion of Your:shop to include the other members of Your:franchise lies in stark contrast to the actuality of the demise of Your:books, we saw nothing more of Ellis’s promised one-off charity events in town and Varsity’s profile on campus has remained as low as ever.
It has been a mixed bag when it comes to what pledges the sabbatical officers have and haven’t fulfilled. And what of accountability for this? We have of course taken the ultimate step in holding an officer accountable; Fletcher-Hackwood became the first sabbatical officer ousted by a vote of no confidence in YUSU history. But this is entirely separate of what Fletcher-Hackwood actually promised us. Admittedly, not smacking a student was somewhat implicit in her role, but there has been no move to hold her accountable for targets that she actively promised to meet.
This lack of any attempt by students to hold her accountable holds with all the other sabbatical officers as well. Nothing seems to be in place to keep them to their original policies. A harsh word at Senate or a smack on the wrist at an underattended UGM doesn’t really cut it.
We cannot realistically hope for a perfect student union, but we have every reason to hope for at least some level of accountability.
So as the new candidates lay down their manifestos, we need to pay attention to the promises they make us. Canning has admirably taken the brunt of all criticisms lobbied at YUSU but as a body we have hardly been rigorous in said critique. With a keen eye on the progress of the newly elected, perhaps we can go some way to dispelling the cynicism surrounding student union politics.
We are not without our power, the political pressure of ten thousand students would go far in forcing accountability on our illustrious leaders. Candidates such as Mad Cap’n Tom Scott stand for a reason. He knows as well as we do that we won’t bother to hold him to his promise of cutlasses for all.
